The Washington Huskies had problems on the road in Eugene, Oregon on Saturday. In their trip to Autzen Stadium, Jedd Fisch and the Huskies lost 49-21 to Dan Lanning and the No. 1 Oregon Ducks.
Given how they looked Saturday and what everyone else across the country looked like, it seems likely that Oregon will win the national title this season. Meanwhile, Fisch and the Huskies will be heading into the offseason after a bowl game as they try to build momentum to accelerate this rebuild.
This game was lopsided and the scoreboard certainly reflects that, but there are plenty of other stats that illustrate just how one sided this rivalry game happened to be. It’s frustrating, but the Ducks are just a much better team this season. And the following numbers help show that.
3 concerning stats in Washington’s road loss to the No. 1 ranked Oregon Ducks
Let’s go over the three stats that really concerned me in this game. Nothing advanced metrics here. Just straightforward, worrisome numbers from Washington’s road loss to the Oregon Ducks.
No. 1: 71 percent
This is the third down conversion percentage that Washington allowed in this game. The Huskies’ defense was just flat out uninspiring against the incredibly talented group that is Oregon’s offense, but the Ducks had no problem routinely converting on third down. It was almost a given for them.
First, it’s a problem that Washington only forced seven different third down attempts. Second, it’s alarming that Oregon was able to convert on five of them.
No. 2: 6.6
6.6 yards per carry allowed by Washington’s defense. The Huskies had plenty of issues stopping Oregon’s rushing attack and the biggest issue of them all is that Oregon had no problem running right through the Huskies’ defensive front.
Washington didn’t have a single tackle for loss in this game. The fact that there was no push up front on the defensive side of things allowed for Oregon’s offense to do just about whatever it wanted. You won’t win many games like that.
No. 3: 1.2
We’re going to stick with yards per carry, but this time let’s look at Washington’s offense. Because while the Ducks were able to get going on the ground, the Huskies managed just 43 net rushing yards on 37 rushing attempts. That’s not a good thing.
The Ducks managed to rack up 16 tackles for loss against Washington. UW just flat out could not get much push up front.
But now we’re on to a bowl game. Washington will have 15 more practices and the offseason to get some of these things figured out. And those problems will need to be solved at some point if UW is going to return to the sort of program it wants to be.